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About RubySneakers

I admit to liking structure and routine. I’ll even admit to having a fondness for planning and procedures. Don’t even get me started on lists.

Rules can be good! Helpful, even.

Which means that I sometimes have a hard time bending them.

Don’t get me wrong – I can ‘do’ spontaneous with the best of them…but preferably with advanced warning, and a bit of a ‘heads up’ on what we’re being spontaneous about.

If you don’t mind.

So…this running thing has caused a bit of conflict at times.

I can happily go with the flow on a number of things. I even enjoy it.

But ask me to run through red lights, cross the road when the little man is clearly not even green, or jog the wrong way down a one-way street, and I experience an inner eye-twitch (of sorts). My brain whispers, “rule breaker”, my eyes look around for undercover traffic cops, and my conscience just shakes its head in disappointment.

Well…maybe not exactly like that – but the point it, it’s still not a natural thing to do.

I remember my first 5km running event through the city. The streets were closed off, it was an organised run, but my law-abiding brain initially wanted to stop at every red traffic light and politely wait for zeroes of cars to pass.

I continued on, but the urge to wait was definitely there. So was the eye-twitch.

At my second event, said brain wanted me to go the ‘correct’ way around a roundabout. As in – where the traffic would go. I was in my own little world, following the ‘traffic rules’, and almost did the full loop.

All I was missing (apparently) was a set of indicators and a horn. I forgot to human.

Luckily, I spotted others just in time and followed their path (whew!).

I still prefer trail runs, or a run in the park, but when it comes to ‘bending the rules’ for a stint in the city I’m definitely getting better. Getting up at stupid o’clock also helps; barely any traffic, a few dogs and their humans, and fellow runners.

So my recent triumph?

*drum roll*

I ran through three pedestrian crossings before the lovely green ‘walk’ signal gave the OK. Without a guilty look on my face (*shifty eyes*), and without the expectation of an “Excuse me, Mam – we’d like you to come with us” being uttered from the darkness.

Granted, I probably wasn’t fully awake at the time, and no doubt running in a sleep-deprived haze. Even my conscience gave me a free pass.

And I’ve come to the logical, non-crazy conclusion that it knows, and has been deliberately messing up to get back at me.

I didn’t mean to start cheating, but the Fitbit just seemed so practical and helpful. I’ve been wearing it every day, and using it to track my sleep at night – reserving the Garmin for the occasional parkrun or ‘official’ events (usually anything 5km or more).

But let’s back up a bit.

Have you ever found yourself assigning a personality to inanimate objects in your home? Maybe a toy, appliance, or…um…athletic device?

No? Oh. Well this is awkward…me neither!

Haha. That would be weird.

So…please just ignore that first bit, and let’s now look at an *imaginary* scenario where a Garmin watch appears to be displaying jealousy toward a Fitbit and is being quite passive-aggressive.

Exhibit A: At parkrun a few weeks ago, the Garmin suddenly, ‘lost’ its satellite connection (on a bright, clear day, mind you) and failed to track the first 800 metres or so. Hmmm…

Exhibit B: Refusing to feed any information to its own website. No amount of coaxing worked. Consideration was given to making aeroplane noises and saying, “here comes the data!”…apparently.

Exhibit C: Only starting to charge after a ridiculous amount of re-aligning the points, and then having to freeze on the spot once it connected (reminiscent of playing ‘statues’ as a kid).

Now if you were to believe that this imaginary Garmin had been acting out, you may be convinced by the solid facts above. You may also be interested to know that only weeks earlier it had been on the shelf, gathering dust. A shiny new Fitbit had moved in, and the Garmin remained hidden away, forgotten.

Its imaginary owner may have even been reminded of Wheezy from Toy Story, and felt bad.

They may have also started wearing it again on shorter runs out of guilt.

But of course none of that actually happened, and the ‘real’ tale ends well. That is; both Garmin and Fitbit are now getting along working fine.

It was probably something to do with installing a new Garmin software update, which resolved all of the synching and recording problems.

Probably.

Oh, and on a totally unrelated topic– have you seen Nessie!?

She’s sold out at the moment, and not available for a gazillion weeks, but I’m pretty sure I’ll place an order.

Pretty sure I’ll use her.

Pretty sure I won’t feel terrible for plonking her and those precious feet into boiling hot liquid.

I wish I could tell you that my Juneathon activities have involved new paths taken, trails explored, and exciting adventures along the way, but in reality the closest I’ve come to being Hobbit-like is by way of a typo.

Hobbit Habit.

As in a creature of.

So my tale of ‘There and Back Again’ is not nearly as interesting. In reality, it means I’ve taken the same route for walking / running pretty much the whole time. With a couple of exceptions, I generally stick close to home – the nearby park, the streets close by, and the parkrun course. I run there, and I run back again.

(I did get a bit excited last week visiting ‘The Wizard’s Bar’, but figured a business function may not be the most appropriate time for a selfie with the dragon mural)

Normally I am more than OK with it. Consistency is key and all that. I enjoy my runs / walks – I know the tracks well, the best spot to cross a busy road, the distance, and areas that are open and well lit.

I guess I just figured that for Juneathon I should try mixing it up a bit.

So in the spirit of new things, off I trotted for an organised group run with strangers. I even had my reflective stripes and (new) flashy-torch with three settings. (Did I mention it was a night run? I know, right? So adventure-y of me!)

Take that, familiar safety and routine! New paths come at me; I am in your hands.

So off we ran…

…to the park near my house. And back again.

*sigh*

Actually I had to laugh – I could have popped home for a drink we were that close.

But I did it, and it was also great meeting new people and being pushed to keep running when I normally would have stopped at 5k.

So adventure aside, I guess the lesson is that my usual trails are fine. I’m still running and doing other Juneathon-y stuff. I’m not terribly good at blogging about it regularly, but it is happening.

There and back again: a tale of habit.

It may not be worthy of a movie adaption; but for a wannabe (off and on again) runner, it actually isn’t so bad after all.

On my walk today (a quick 3k) I got to thinking about a question posed via #RunChat on Twitter: “Sunrise or sunset? Which would you rather see on your run? Why?”

My answer: Sunset.

Why? Part of the reason is that I find it’s a nice way to wind-down after a long day. Plus, they’re so pretty! And right…there. This one was just hanging around waiting for its photo to be taken last week:

iPhone out, click, done. See? Easy.

I guess if I’m being completely honest though, a bigger part of my preference is that sunset running doesn’t involve ‘rising and shining’ and being all chirpy at a time when it feels unnatural. But that’s just me.

I’m more of a night person, and therefore find running at sunrise is so, so much harder (and also – don’t they involve mountain trekking or beaches or other inspiring things?). Plus, seeing a sunrise takes planning and warm layers and coffee drinking and…well…just getting up early in general.

And there it is: getting up early.

I know it’s easy for others, and there may be people *eye-rolling* at this (sorry), but here’s the thing:

I try, I really do, but am not your typical early-morning riser. So much so, that I have dreamt of a truck backing-up and making that beeping noise (as they do). This can last for ages, but in my dreams I’m OK with it (take your time, Mr Driver. It’s cool, reversing can be hard).

Yeah…so…that ‘beep, beep’? That’s my alarm clock.

(Turns out I can incorporate pesky noises into my dreams and just keep sleeping through. It’s a gift and a curse)

Switch to music as an alarm, you say?

Nope. Cue dreams of performing onstage, singing my heart out to whatever happens to be on the radio that morning (apparently I’m an extrovert in my dreams. Go figure).

It doesn’t always happen that way of course, but it’s often enough for me to start setting multiple alarms when I need to get up any earlier than say…6:30am. Either that, or ask ‘J’ (who’s usually already up) to come in and roll me onto the floor. And that never ends well.

So you see – the odds are against me. That’s how much I love my sleep.

But Juneathon is about mixing things up, and I’m up for the challenge:

But just in case, I’ll also pull out my magic wand (Expecto…Rest-o-stoppus?) and add a sprinkle of fairy dust. That always works…right?

Actually, there’s a lot to be said for rest periods – any runner will tell you that they’re important for recovery.

Example: Run 10k, rest. (Easy, right?)

Nailed it.

I think you’re meant to run again after a few days… but whatever. I’ll leave the technical stuff to the experts.

I discovered I was really good at the resting part and got excited to have a new goal (I love being good at stuff!!). It does take a bit of dedication though – all of that distraction and avoidance is tough work.

Referring back to last year’s Diddly Squat challenge for a few pointers helped a lot, and I even reached ExpertResting Level recently (for those playing at home – that’s the stage where you can physically see your butt imprint in the couch cushions).